kappie, noun

/ˈkapi/
Forms:
cappey, cappieShow more Also cappey, cappie, cappje, cappy, kapje, kappi, kappje, kappjie.
Origin:
Afrikaans, DutchShow more Afrikaans, from Dutch kapje little hood.
1. A large cloth sunbonnet with a deep brim and a frill or flap protecting the neck, formerly often worn by Afrikaner women, but now used mainly on certain ceremonial occasions, as in re-enactments of events from Afrikaner history.
Note:
Similar in shape to a coal-scuttle bonnet.
1766 A. Fothergill in D.H. Strutt Clothing Fashions (1975) 118Two sets of lace caps and engageantes besides the handkerchiefs and palenteijns...6 Kapjes.
1834 A. Smith Diary (1939) I. 66Some few of the women were fashionably dressed, but most of them had on their head either small black bonnets or what are called ‘cappies’.
1872 ‘Z.’ in Cape Monthly Mag. V. Oct. 230‘Cappy’ we shall ever regard with respect, for its multifarious uses, for it is more than a sun-bonnet, being a sun-wind-dust-and-fly-screen all in one.
1873 F. Boyle To Cape for Diamonds 327Upon their heads is tossed the kapje (cappy), a hideous calico funnel, of which the coal-scuttle bonnet of our grandmothers was the refined and graceful model.
1883 M.A. Carey-Hobson Farm in Karoo 71A fine comely Dutch Vrouw, with a pair of large brown eyes looking out from under a huge sun-bonnet or kapje.
1897 ‘F. Macnab’ On Veldt & Farm 18For the Boers he had a distinct class of goods — large cuckoo bonnets, which were worn by the Dutch ‘vrows,’ and are called ‘kappies’, though anything less like a cap could hardly be imagined.
1900 B.M. Hicks Cape as I Found It 140A Hottentot girl in a clean kapje.
1901 E. Hobhouse Report of Visit to Camps 205The ‘Kapje’ or sunbonnet generally used on Dutch farms.
1905 O.E.A. Schreiner in C. Clayton Woman’s Rose (1986) 116His mother covered her face with the sides of her kappie and wept aloud.
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 250Kapje,..A useful article of female attire largely worn in the country; it is made to shade the face and to protect the back of the neck at the same time. It cannot be said to enhance in any way the appearance of the wearer.
1915 D. Fairbridge Torch Bearer 98Little Mrs. Neethling was watering her sun-dried plants, a huge, frilled kapje of snowy whiteness on her neat head.
1936 E. Rosenthal Old-Time Survivals 25The kappie is worn by some wives of farmers. Save that it is of more generous dimensions, it is the cowl preferred by the Dutch peasant women of Rembrandt or Adriaan van Ostade. Overshadowing the face in front, as was needed in a sunny climate, with wide flaps at the side and a system of tucks at the back, this glorified poke-bonnet is like those donned by the good-wives in the ‘Covered Wagon’ and similar American films.
1944 J. Mockford Here Are S. Africans 63Usually the women wore big sunbonnets of..fine white linen. These kappies with their hems and tucks and embroideries were their joy...Quite apart from looks the kappie had its uses. It shaded the whole face and neck.
1958 S. Cloete Mask 98They bought also some soft goods from which their wives made their clothes and kappies, or sunbonnets.
1965 A. Gordon-Brown S. Afr. Heritage II. 31The fichu and the kappie were typical features of a Voortrekker woman’s dress. The kappies, particularly, were beautifully embroidered in quaint original designs.
1968 K. McMagh Dinner of Herbs 81The Griqua..women wore the ‘kappie’, starched and beautifully ironed, of print or calico, based on the design of the sunbonnets of the Voortrekker women.
1972 A.A. Telford Yesterday’s Dress 124Probably the most distinctive item of clothing worn by Voortrekker women was the bonnet or ‘kappie’.
1973 J. Meintjes Voortrekkers 61A distinctive and decorative peaked bonnet called a kappie.
1975 D.H. Strutt Clothing Fashions 24A black hood turned back at the front and descending to her shoulders in kappie-like fashion.
1975 D.H. Strutt Clothing Fashions 141A frill was added early in the 19th century that shaded the neck and was so useful that it persisted as part of the hood. Such was the birth of the kappie.
1981 Sunday Times 13 Sept. 7Tannie Ralie peers out at the modern world from under an old starched Voortrekker kappie.
1982 C. Hope Private Parts 17Grannie would send him to fetch the old black crêpe voortrekker ‘kappie’ from the stinkwood chest in her bedroom.
1986 W. Steenkamp Blake’s Woman 91A ‘kappie’, a large cloth bonnet with wings, such as the colonial farmers’ wives wore.
1989 J. Hobbs Thoughts in Makeshift Mortuary 203The two older girls had to make sure that the child kept her deep-brimmed cotton kappie and her shoes and socks on at all times.
1991 O. Oberholzer in Time 29 July 28‘Wait’ she said ‘just let me put on my scarf..and new pink kappie’.
1993 [see ossewa sense 2 a].
2. rare. Any hat or cap.
1970 C.B. Wood Informant, Johannesburg, GautengPut on your ‘kappie’ (hat or bonnet).
1983 Frontline Sept. 27I can’t go with a bare head — always with a doek or a kappie. I ask him why, but he says, no, it is his religion.
3. figurative. Grammar. The circumflex used in Afrikaans to indicate a lengthening and lowering of the vowel (as in kêrel and môre). Also figurative.
1972 Informant, Grahamstown (now Makhanda, Eastern Cape)Czech is full of diacritics — like kappies upside down.
1993 I. Vladislavić Folly 129He formulated a question..and was about to come out with it when Nieuwenhuizen raised his right hand to hush him, kinked his eyebrows into kappies (circumflexes) and formed a perfect O with his lips.
4. colloquial. A member of the Kappie Kommando; also used allusively of this group or its members.
1983 Evening Post 2 May 6No scrap of evidence linking the Conservative Party to the Nazified Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and the ultra-verkrampte Kappie-commando is overlooked by the NP-supporting newspapers..An advertisement in..Die Patriot: Kappies and AWB members will receive especially good service.
1988 Cape Times 28 Oct. (Suppl.) 2Somebody laughed at my clothes and said I must be a kappie vrou.
A large cloth sunbonnet with a deep brim and a frill or flap protecting the neck, formerly often worn by Afrikaner women, but now used mainly on certain ceremonial occasions, as in re-enactments of events from Afrikaner history.
Any hat or cap.
The circumflex used in Afrikaans to indicate a lengthening and lowering of the vowel (as in kêrel and môre). Also figurative.
A member of the Kappie Kommando; also used allusively of this group or its members.
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kapok, nounn.Kappie Kommando, noun phrasen. phr.
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